Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Scenes from a motorcycle trip.

Great read!

I�ve taken some long trips, one of them was 4,500 miles in 9 days, but I don�t remember doing more than 700 in a single day. In the days before my bikes had mag wheels I would carry my own hand polished tire irons, patches, and pump as I found there were dang few places along the road that can fix a flat tube type motorcycle tire. Never had to repair one of my own tires, but I was the tire fix guy when I went with a group. Not a title I wanted, but the best option when someone in the group gets a flat out in the middle of nowhere?

I run Metzler LaserTec on my street bike as they are real soft and sticky, but only good for 6,000 miles. Not cheap per mile, but I�ve had to pay for long life hard tires with my hide more than once.

How many mile do you get on tank of gas? I was riding through Wyoming on I80 west of Rock Springs and saw signs for the world�s largest gas station up the road in Little America, so I figured I would skip the gas stop in Green River so I could brag about filling up in the world�s largest gas station. I got hooked by that marketing hype and figured I had enough gas to make it. Well I did make it, but one of the many thunder storms common to that part of the country in early summer knocked out the power to all 102 pumps. Not wanting to wait around to see how long it took the local utility to fix their system I hit the road knowing I still hadn�t switched over to reserve. That comfort evaporated about a mile down the road, but I was still confident as the map showed the town of Lyman about 20 miles ahead. When I got to Lyman I discovered that it�s not on the interstate, and I had another 4 miles to go. I kept my speed down to about 40 mph and made it to Lyman on the last cup or two of fuel. I learned my lesson and since then I always keep to my fill schedule. I learned that bigger gas tanks help, but only if you keep gas in them.

Fliers have an old saying about the five most useless things in flying �
� runway behind you
� altitude above you
� yesterday's weather
� fuel still in the truck
� three seconds ago

I'd say!!! I'd get about 20 miles on it and have to stop to get off... Only way I'd get 700 miles out of that bike is if it was on a tow truck and I was in the cab..

I like the readin'.

You can have the ridin'.

Great thread.

I've never made a motorcycle excursion as epic as yours, but I've done enough miles to understand what it entails.

I can also appreciate the satisfation evident in dragging a retired motorcycle out of the back of the garage, making it road worthy again, then reeling some more miles on its long dormant odometer.

It has inspired me to entertain the possibility that I may have a few touring miles left in my creaky old vessel,....but I doubt that I'll try it on the Bonneville. My arthritic knees complain about being held in a stationary position for any length of time.

I always maintained that a motorcycle is the ultimate convertible... I had a Honda 750 Magna back in 98 and 99.

I got him by a deer, actually about 5 of them..I missed them, they didn't miss me.. at about 50 mph..but I dumped it and got scrapped up...

It really bothered my 6 year old son, so I sold the bike after it got fixed...but riding here in Oregon and No California in the summer.. you can't have no more beautiful environment to enjoy it...

Appreciate the report!

You make me wish my legs were long enough fork a KLR 650. But the seat is too far off the ground for a guy with a 29 inch inseam.

I do kind of miss my 1976 Honda XL 350, though it was certainly not suited to more than about ten miles of pavement at a time.

Great story, keep on keepin on!!!!


MO

I used to ride /own a klr650,and I have a 29" inseam

Great stuff, truly enjoy a little backroad motorcycle trip myself!

Central Washington, above the Columbia:


Up near the Idaho/Montana border:


Seems you had a great trip!

Crash bars and highways pegs? Somebody must make 'em to fit. Enough gear bungeed on the bag to make a backrest maybe. Be a shame to need another bike just fer road trips.

I will say there's few finer things than a good motorcycle loaded up with clothes, tools and camping gear, and a road trip in the offing.

Anyhoo... some time back I was less than complimentary to your motorcycle here, I think I must've been on my period.

Here's some pics from a Triumph/Ducati/Husquarva dealer in Highland Falls NY (Rockwell Cycles, owned by kin of Norman Rockwell, good to see his family made good). Took photos of some of the Triumphs, I didn't think to take pics of the rest.

A Rocket III, 2,200 cc, the largest-displacement production motorcycle in the world.



A 1,700cc edition of the Thunderbird vertical twin...



...and assorted Bonnevilles...



Geeze, a motorcycle dealership all about motorcycles, imagine.

Birdwatcher

Ain't no trick to it of course, just patience, and far easier than driving in a car on account of it is less boring. Anyhow, as it worked out that 709 miles was the longest one-day total of the trip.

KLR's have a 6 gallon gas tank, mine hits reserve at 4.3 gallons, anywhere between a low of 180 and a maximum of 230 miles on this trip.

Back to the journey....

My first specific destination, a stop-off really, was Indian Falls, on Tonawanda Creek, maybe thirty miles East of Buffalo NY.

Hard to explain why without spinning this off into a history thread but here's the briefest version I can manage.

A cabin above the falls was the birthplace of Eli S. Parker, the Seneca Indian who served with Grant and who was famously present at Appomatox.



Eli Parker's parents were William and Elizabeth Parker, this being a photo of Elizabeth in her later years.



William Parker fought on the American side in the War of 1812, greviously wounded in that service. It would seem they were a remarkably forward-looking couple, actively collaborating with Lewis Henry Morgan in his pioneering anthropological work The League of the Iroquois. And of course, one of their kids went to West Point.

http://www.pbs.org/warrior/content/timeline/crisis/parents.html

The specific reason for the stop-off was this, a painting hanging in a small British museum, purchased in New York in the late Nineteeth Century, presently known as "Pochahantas and Child".



The question came up on a reenactor board as to who these people really were. Apparently by the her dress they were Iroquois from around the 1830's or 40's. I noted the degree of resemblance to what Elizabeth Parker and young Eli might have looked like.

Eli Parker was born "in a log cabin overlooking Indian Falls".

Browsing around on the web some months back, I came across this photo of the falls...



...and this photo of a historical marker.



Although I am told the painting was a studio portrait, I was looking to match that cliff with anything in the Indian Falls area which might clinch the ID.



A strange feeling riding in, about like homing in on a given GPS waypoint, me knowing about where it was, but not what it would look like when I got there.

Anyways, here's that marker, set in pretty, rolling country that was apparently in the process of gradually going under to high-dollar, large-acreage houses, prob'ly Buffalo commuters. hard to tell in the pic, but across the road from the bike is a cornfield, the corn barely a foot high. Down here in South Texas they are already running the harvesters ...



And around a corner and about fifty yards downhill, the falls...

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/24hrcamp/IMG_1497.jpg[/img]

Right there above the falls, where the Parker cabin might have been is the "Indian Falls Log Cabin Restaurant" with a small dining room overlooking the falls.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/24hrcamp/IMG_1509.jpg[/img]

It seems likely that the Parker cabin was the origin of that name, though only one person there knew that the historical marker was there just up the hill (I found the restaurant first and asked directions).

Here's my motorcycle in the parking lot, Tonawanda Creek in the background...

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/24hrcamp/IMG_1495.jpg[/img]

..and here's the odometer: 1,733 miles from my front door, but only a paltry 330 miles from that truckstop north of Columbus

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/24hrcamp/IMG_1496.jpg[/img]

I wasn't able to check out the area, all around the falls and creek at that point was private land, but I still ain't ready to abandon my theory

I did eat in the restaurant, apparently its a popular spot and the food was pretty good. I got into some good conversations too, folks having seen the Texas plates on my bike.

"San Antonio, Texas" is a pretty good place to be from, most folks around the country seemingly having positive connations about the place, and it SOUNDS far away, like when your in Upstate New York fer example.

Birdwatcher

Ah .........the good times I have had riding with Birdwatcher, its great to get on the road again. Good read, lets hear more.
Rick

OOOO.
I know where THAT bridge be.
Glad you are having such a fine trip, BW./

Did you see anything besides your KLR on that trip?

Ken, you just ain't getting it...

You put a guy, his wife, his kids and his motorcycle up on a scenic overlook...

Guess what he takes a picture of first.... Motorcycle people understand this.

And Rick... ya know what the problem with the innernet is? Ya never know WHO might be reading....

Nice bike... um.... who's is it?

Anyhow...

I have this love/hate relationship with New York. The thing about New York State is there isn't a "dud" area of the whole place, geographically speaking that is. In common vernacular it is divided into different regions for a good reason, each region is unique and beautiful.

So each area has significance, and when I spout off the name of a watercourse, like Cayuga Creek fer example, it ain't just a creek.

Hard to explain exactly unless you know the state.

I had about two hours of daylight left when I left Indian Falls, and headed to my planned overnight layover; Letchworth State Park on the Genessee, the gorge there maybe a tad overstated as "the Grand Canyon of the East". Not fer nothing though does "Genessee" come down from the Seneca term for "beautiful valley". Open rolling country, on the west side of the Finger Lakes Region, the river flowing north from the Southern Tier area to Lake Ontario.

Time was short and I never did get a good landscape photo of that country, not even with my motorcycle in it, but this one has the shadow at least....



On my way to the Genesee this was a shock, here's a photo: Cayuga Creek, farm... and windmills....



I have grown used to seeing windmills in droves on the drive to West Texas, but I didn't think I'd find 'em here. Seen up close, it is hard to imagine they ain't hitting red-tails and what-not clear out of the ballpark with a fair regularity.

Gassing up outside of Letchworth I noticed the only bona-fide mechanical breakdown of the trip. The fuel petcock dripped gas when turned to "reserve". Not unexpected that 18 year-old seals might give out, and I have heard ethanol does bad things to seals anyway. I just didn't use reserve for the rest of the trip, gassing up before 180 miles on each tank of gas to be sure.

Letchworth State Park was a place familiar to me during my college years, but I hadn't been back since. One quiet evening in June thirty-five years ago I had stood upon a hilltop there, and heard wood thrush upon wood thrush singing clear off to the horizon.

The plan was to find that hilltop to compare it as it is today (wood thrush populations have reportedly suffered a particularly steep decline over the years) and then to sleep out overnight at the park. The following day I was gonna meander through regions familiar to me back then before heading down to my cousin's place in Pennsylvania.

Well, here's some quick shots from the park...








I was all set to stay but then one of them real-life phenomema hit: Suddenly I was flooded with surprisingly vivid recollections of someone I knew back then, who was since taken from among us far too soon. Staying there alone in company with my melancholy seemed a dismal postscript to happy recollections. It occured to me that where I would rather be just then was drinking coffee the next morning at my cousin's breakfast table, maybe 250 miles away on the Delaware. I did hear a wood thrush, and a veery.

There are some motorcycle rides you know it ain't smart to take, but you do it anyway. So it was that night. It was getting dark when I left the park, more so for me on account of my tinted amber faceshield. Highway 19 south was pretty quiet south to the Southern Tier Expressway, so there was no one for me to fall in behind to use their headlights.

Once on the Expressway, I fell in behind a fast-moving semi. Quite often when yo do this at night, the truck driver becomes aware of you and why you are tailing them, close enough to use their headlights, far enough back to give you time to react in case roadkill or something suddenly emerges from under the semi trailer. I followed the guy clear to Elmira, us exchanging flashing high beams when he came to his exit (my headlight was still wavering, as it had been since Arkansas).

Stopped the next exit to get coffee and wake up, like I said, not a smart ride. The temperature was down in the 50's too, but I didn't want to climb in my raingear to stay warm. Back on the Expressway, some of the construction was surprisingly rough even for a bike with a long-travel suspension like mine, the bumps and potholes arriving abruptly in the dark, without warning.

I took 81 south to Scranton, stopped again to wake up, and then followed a fast truck east on 84 to the Delaware, riding up my cousin's driveway about two in the morning. Great therapy for him, who just had a knee replaced two weeks before, he scrambled up and met me on the porch, pistol in hand. He claimed afterwards that he knew it was me all along... Heck, it ain't like he didn't know I was coming, sooner or later.

Anyhow, here's a photo of part of his travel trailer and the very front of a car in his driveway the next morning....



...and while I'm at it, here's an artsy photo of the tree canopy at his place, as reflected in the glass of a tachometer.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/IMG_1538.jpg[/img]

Oh yeah, note the odometer reading..... 2,084 miles in three days travel. Not the best I've ever done, but not bad fer an old guy either

Birdwatcher

Mike, There is no doubt as to my status in regard to the 'BIKE'....I am sure I will live to regret my statement's and the punishment for owning the bike will last for a long time, if not forever. I have no regrets and Mrs Hardass will just have to live with both of us. (me and the bike)
May be a long dry spell ahead, think I will start drinking again.
Rick

if you all will note the rust on Birdy's handlebars. not the type of thing often seen on a 'show' bike. this ain't one neither. but it works. been there done that. rust and dings are just party scars. been a while since i been on two wheels. need to finish the house before i get the bug again though... depreciable assets come after appreciable assets. that's the way it works in my house...

sorry Birdy, it'll be a while 'fore we ride together again. but i'm looking at the Kawasaki website, however...

-tom

globemaster, welcome to the fold. mebbe you'll be a roadtrip soon, or we can meet in the mountains of colorado, or some other out of the way place...



tom too...

p.s. didn't know you'd quit drinking... last i heard from you "Moose Drool" was your latest affectation...

Tom, Did not quit.....just busy enough with the family that I never felt like drinkin, Mrs Hardass dislikes my drunken butt as much as she does the bike! soooooo..... in for a penny, in for a pound!
R
ps....you and Mike meet me halfway and I will go for it. (I have a box of corona and some lime i need to attend to)